7 Quick Takes (Vol 36)

1. Despite the fact that it’s only a four day work week for me, it has felt so much longer. Probably has to do with the fact that I’ve woken up absolutely exhausted every day this week.

2. My work situation is going to be changing up again, although not until this summer. I feel like it’s changed so much recently that I can barely catch a break. It’s nothing bad this time around, but I’m going to wait until it’s a little more finalized to talk about it.

3. Speaking of nannies, I met my Tuesday/Thursday boys’ old nanny this week. She was passing through Calgary and stayed with the family for a couple of days. It’s always interesting meeting a past nanny, and she was super nice.

4. I haven’t really been interested in the Royal Wedding, but yesterday, I got invited to a viewing party tonight. While this isn’t something I would normally do, the thought of a girls night was too hard to pass up. Apparently we’ll be having breakfast for dinner too!

5. A new donut place opened up in Calgary recently, and all the talk of it on Twitter has had me drooling. I’m going to attempt to go tomorrow to try it out.

6. While trying to plan our vacation this summer, I realized I’m most interested in three things: coffee, bakeries/cupcake shops and shopping. Maybe I need to readjust my priorities so that Stephen won’t get bored.

7. I’ve been having such strange dreams lately. Last week, I dreamt that I brought home a shopping cart full of cooked turkey. Strange.

Chocolate Macaroons

I did a guest post about these cookies last year on a friend’s blog, but figured they needed to be on my blog as well.

Back when I first started dating Stephen, I wanted to know what his favorite cookie was. He told me it was chocolate macaroons, but knowing nothing about baking back then, I was clueless. The only chocolate macaroons I had ever seen came in a box from Walmart. I bought them for him as a surprise, but it turns out I was wrong. I then remembered seeing a bag of chocolate macaroons being sold at Safeway, so I tried those next. Wrong again. He tried once again to describe them to me, and told me that I would need to make them myself, but his Mom had the recipe. I emailed her to get the recipe, and then tried once again to surprise him with these cookies. Turns out I had finally gotten it right! These cookies have been such a hit in my family, and whenever I make them, I always have to make them in large quantities so that we have extra to throw in the freezer.

I’ve come a long way in my baking skills since those early days of dating Stephen, but I still love making these cookies. They’re not even baked, you just boil some ingredients together on the stove and mix it all up. Easy as pie, and oh so addicting.

Chocolate Macroons

(Printable Recipe)

2 cups Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1 cup Margarine
6 tsp Cocoa powder
3 cups Quick Oats
1 cup Shredded coconut
1 tsp Vanilla

1. Combine the sugar, milk, margarine and cocoa powder in a pot. Bring to a low boil, and then continue boiling for only 4 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, combine quick oats, coconut and vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture.

3. Drop by the spoonful onto waxed paper to cool and set (they don’t fall apart when picked up). Once set, store them in the fridge in a sealed container, so they don’t dry out.

Easter Dinner

Like I mentioned earlier in the week, the only time we could get the whole family together for dinner was on Monday evening. It was mine and Stephen’s first time hosting a holiday dinner, and we were pretty excited!

I spent all of Sunday baking treats for everyone. Monday was a busy day, since Stephen and I seem to have the mentality that we should do things big. My family came over earlier in the day (around 2pm) and we spent the afternoon just hanging out. The weather was nice enough that we all went to the field by my house to throw around a football and Frisbee. We even made friends some boys who were at the park.

Closer to dinner time, we had four of my friends show up, putting us at a grand total of 12 people. My parents had to bring all of the chairs from their house so everyone would have a place to sit down and eat! There was just so much food: Turkey, bacon croissant stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies,  and candied carrots. I’m sure there was more that I’m forgetting about.

After dinner, we dived right into dessert. I baked rum carrot cake, and I had made 5 different types of ice cream. That might have been a bit much, but it was the first time that I had a chance to share ice cream with my family that I had made myself. After dinner, we played a few games.

Overall, I’d say that dinner was a success. A bit chaotic at times, but a good practice run for Christmas dinner (we’ll be having even more people over)!

Ten on Tuesday

#77 at Roots and Rings

1. How many blogs do you read every day and what are they? (I’m talking the ones you NEVER miss)
There isn’t a set amount that I read every day. I read blogs in the morning with my coffee, so I just read as many as I can fit in during that time. There aren’t any that I have to read every single day; I just open up my Google Reader and use the Next button.

2. How many “best friends” do you have? Do you have different “besties” for different areas of your life?
As cheesy as it may sound, Stephen is my very best friend. In terms of people outside of my relationship, there are a couple of girls who are really close to me. I suppose that I do have different best friends for different areas of my life!

3. What’s your daily make up routine?
Very minimal: concealer, foundation and some finishing powder stuff on top of that.

4. What is your ideal girl’s night?
Anything that involves lots of talking, laughter and good food.

5. Do you keep up with your nails/toenails or are they au natural?
I don’t fuss with my fingernails, mostly because I can’t stand how fast nail polish chips on them and I don’t have the patience to maintain them. I do paint my toe nails quite often in the summer.

6. What’s your best roommate story (assuming you had a roommate at some point in your life)?
I moved in with Stephen and his roommate for several months. The roommate got so drunk one night that he got angry at a chair and threw it off our sixth floor balcony. I was SO upset with him, and he knew it.

7. What’s your “go to” outfit that you wear more than anything else?
Jeans and a t-shirt.

8. Do you have a beauty secret?
Confidence is key.

9. Did you read Seventeen magazine growing up?
I did occasionally.

10. How did you learn to put on makeup?
I’m not really a makeup person, but I’m pretty sure what I did learn was from seeing my Mom put her own makeup on. Youtube tutorials are fantastic for teaching me what I don’t know.

Happy Easter

{via}

Happy (belated) Easter! The only day that we could get the whole family together for Easter dinner is tonight, so I took today off. (Side note: I didn’t even realize that Easter Monday is no longer a holiday here!) My day will be spent with family, friends, good food, way too much dessert and silly games. Stephen and I are hosting our first Easter dinner, and there should be 12 of us all together. It’ll be a busy day!

How did you celebrate Easter?

7 Quick Takes (vol 35)

1. Stephen and I are applying to do Couples 4 Kids, which is a program with Big Brothers and Big Sisters Calgary. I'm pretty excited about this, but it seems to be a lengthy application process. We need police and child intervention checks, interviews and volunteer training. Regardless, it will be a great experience for us!

2. I finally got to see my friend Hannah. I wrote last week that I was going to be seeing her, but with conflicting schedules, it was tough finding a good time to meet up. We went out for dinner last night, and she gave me some little souvenirs of the Burj to give to the boys I nanny (they're obsessed with the world's tallest building).

3. I worked 6 days in a row, had one day off and then worked 4 days in a row. To say I'm exhausted would be an understatement. Thankfully, I do have a four day weekend ahead of me! Although, that does include babysitting tomorrow night for about 5 hours with two new kids. Should be interesting.

4. I decided last night to go through our PVR and clean up shows we've already watched. I deleted a whole whack of them, and realized that I love recording trashy reality TV. One of the shows I had set to record did a funny thing. The PVR said that there were 13 episodes recorded, and when I wen to check them out, it was the same 2 episodes over and over again! Strange.

5. We're hosting Easter dinner at our house this year. This means that I'll be spending most of my weekend baking and cleaning.

6. I made brownie ice cream at 6:30am on Wednesday. Don't worry, I didn't sample it (much).

7. I got two movies out of the library this week that I was really excited for, and I didn't like either one of them! I took out Morning Glory yesterday morning, so I'm hoping that it makes up for the other two movies.

What are your plans for Easter?

Brownie Ice Cream

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this here before, but my first experience (that I can recall) with homemade ice cream was not a pleasant one. The family and I were out to dinner at a friend’s house, and we were served homemade ice cream for dessert. It was…just not good. Too salty. We all ate it to be polite though. That didn’t stop me from wanting my own ice cream maker though. I knew that not all homemade ice cream is bad, so I had to conquer it for myself. My first ever batch didn’t turn out, as I was still getting to know my ice cream maker. At least it was still edible!

When I bought the Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment, I also bought the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream recipe book. I had seen it recommended through several blogs and knew that I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. I’ve been working my way through the book and have loved every recipe so far. The great thing about this recipe is that it’s easy. I’ve made it so many times that I’ve got it memorized. I’ll be serving this ice cream with dessert on Easter!

Brownie Ice Cream
From Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

(Printable Recipe)

2 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup frozen brownie chunks

1. Beat eggs until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar. Mix in milk, heavy cream and vanilla.
2. Transfer to an ice cream make and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. About 2-3 minutes before it’s finished mixing, add in the brownie chunks, then continue mixing.
3. Freeze for 4-6 hours.

Enjoy!

My favorite Camera Apps

I have an iPhone 3GS, and I’ve fallen in love with camera apps. I’ve had to restrict myself because there’s just so many, but that still doesn’t stop me from having 6 different apps. I thought it would be fun to share my favorites, along with pictures that they’ve taken. Remember to click on pictures to make them larger. Since these were taken with my iPhone, and edited on there, some of the editing make look off when they’re a larger size.

This was taken with the standard camera app that comes with the phone. It’s pretty good for a phone.

Hipstamatic. I love the different lenses and film you can use to take pictures. The above pictures are just two examples of the different combinations. I also love how you can get print quality pictures now.

ClassicToy. This one also uses different lenses and film. I love using the Double Eye lens (bottom picture) and the pinhole lens.

Instagram. This is my recent favorite, and I’ve been using it quite a bit to take pictures for twitter. You can take a picture, and then apply different effects to it afterward.

Camera+. This app is great because you can edit your photos afterward in lightbox.

Pocketbooth. This one is so much fun because I love photo booths! You snap four photos and it’s turned into a photo strip. Genius!

What are your favorite camera apps? Do you have as many as me, or do you have more?

Ten on Tuesday

#76 @ Roots and Rings

1. When someone asks you for a book recommendation, what is your go-to book?

I normally just recommend whatever the last good book I read was.

2. Do you buy your books, or are you a library patron?
A combination of both. Lately, I've been frequenting the library more often than not. If I've got a little bit of extra money, I'd much rather buy my favorite books.

3. E-readers, yay or nay?
At the moment, nay. Especially because I've got a library card. I'm not sutra an E-reader is something I'll ever buy for myself, although I wouldn't hate it if I got one as a gift.

4. What was your favorite book as a child?
The Velveteen Rabbit.

5. If you could be any character in a book, who would you be?
I've always wanted to be Madeline!

6. What book would you love to see turned into a movie?
I'd love to see a sequel to Julie & Julia, based on her second book, Cleaving.

7. What is your all-time favorite book?
I have a whole slew of favorite books. It would take much too long to type them all out.

8. How many books do you read at once?
Just one. I've tried to do two at a time, but I always end up favoring one over the other.

9. What is your favorite book genre?
Fiction.

10. Which Harry Potter book is the best? Or haven’t you read them at all?
I've read all of them, but I've never picked a favorite. I'm not sure that I could pick a favorite.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad’s birthday (Happy birthday Dad)! To celebrate, the whole family went out on Saturday night, including my sister Tracy and her fiancé, who came in from Vulcan.

We started off the night with dinner at The Cheesecake Café. I’m always happy to be there because it’s not often I get cheesecake! The Bailey’s cheesecake is amazing. My Dad opened his gifts while we were there. Stephen built my Dad a model ship, and it seems like he loves it. Awesome!

After dinner, we briefly went to Shanks, thinking that we could bowl, but it was just way too busy. We ended up back at my parent’s place to play a game. My family is always playing some sort of board game! This was a new one that Tracy and Kent brought over called Quelf. The gist of the game is that you move your piece around the board and draw cards, most of which have some sort of action that you need to complete. If you don’t complete the action, then you have to take a penalty and move back. At one point in the game, I drew a card that made me talk like Frankenstein (grunts and one word sentences only). The chair I was sitting on broke, leading me to yell something more than a word long, so I lost the points on that one. I also ended up with a tie around my forehead for the rest of the game, and any time someone said my name, I had to put my fingers in a ‘W’ shape on my forehead and say whatever. My family took great pleasure in saying my name after that! (Jessica and I are having a thumb war in the picture below.)

At the end of the game, we all had to draw a bulls eye and tape it to our clothing, with the hope that you catch someone else staring at it. Tracy and Kent took that quite seriously. We’ve already made plans to try this game again at Easter, with a bigger crowd.

I think it’s safe to say that my Dad’s birthday was a good one.
What did you get up to this weekend?

7 Quick Takes (Vol 34)

1. Stephen and I are trying to plan our summer vacation. The plan is to do Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle in a span of about 8-10 days. So, I'm turning to you guys for recommendations for Seattle. What should we see/do/eat while we're there?

2. While I'm thinking of it, if you know of any awesome blogger based out of Seattle, please link me to it! As Stephen said, bloggers know all the best places.

3. It's been quite the week. I've been feeling under the weather, so work seems like it's been dragging. To try and get over this, I've been going to bed by 9:30pm every night.

4. I have to work tomorrow. I'd really rather not, but I agreed to, so I'm stuck doing it.

5. My Dad's birthday is on Monday, so we're celebrating tomorrow! I believe we're all going bowling and then out for dinner.

6. One of my favorite friends is in town visiting from Abu Dhabi! I'm so excited that she's here, and I'll hopefully be seeing her tonight after work.

7. We got quite the dump of snow yesterday. I'm not sure how much we got (I somehow managed to avoid the news all day), but it was definitely more than our fair share. I had a hard time trying to walk through it to the bus stop yesterday morning! I wish the people who shoveled the sidewalks by our house woke up as early as me!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies

Chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels. What more could a girl want out of life?

Ok, don’t answer that. But at this very moment? Chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels all rolled into cookie form are all I need. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately, but not enough so to take time off work. So, while Baby E was napping, and I was trying to cram in an early lunch, these cookies provided a brief respite from my crazy days. (Side note: Since becoming a nanny, my new lunch time is 11:30am, every day.)

I adapted this recipe from Picky Palate. She did a white chocolate version, but since Stephen doesn’t like white chocolate, I never have it on hand. I was cooking dinner on Monday night, and wanted to whip up some cookie dough while my chicken was baking, which means there was no time for a trip to the store. No problem, I just substituted semisweet chocolate chips. Done deal.
Trust me, you’ll love these cookies.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies
Adapted from Picky Palate

(Printable Recipe)

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
1 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp peanut butter
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tso baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 cup broken pretzel pieces
1 (additional) cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
3. Melt chocolate chips and 2 tbsp of peanut butter in a double boiler on the stove.
4. In a separate bowl, beat together butter and sugars. Beat in melted chocolate mixture. Add in egg and vanilla. Fold in flour mixture.
5. Drop by the tablespoonful onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

Beer Tabs for Charity

Have you met my good blog friend Mel? She blogs over at OMG… Awesome! She recently started a campaign to collect beer can tabs.

{Image via OMG…Awesome}

You see, there’s this boy she likes, and he collects tabs from cans. He mails them in to a charity that melts them down and sells the aluminum, with the proceeds going to child burn victim. How awesome is this guy? Mel is hosting a contest on her blog. If you blog about this, before April 20th, you’ll be entered to win a six pack of Moxie. (I don’t even like beer, so I’m not using this as an entry.)

She’ll be collecting pull tabs until May 30th. If you head over to this post, you’ll find more info on how to get in contact with Mel, so that you can mail her any pull tabs you’ve collected. There’ll also be a prize for whoever sends in the most tabs! I’ve only got a wee little collection going on, but every bit counts! (Oh, and my collection is all from pop cans!)

Ten on Tuesday

#75 @ Roots and Rings

1. If you work, do you drive to work or take public transportation?
I take public transportation. A train and a bus every day.

2. How often do you get your haircut? Do you go to the same person every time?
Not nearly often enough. I still haven't found someone I truly like, so I go to a different person every time.

3. Do you read the newspaper? If so, a hardcopy or the online version?
I read the free paper every morning on the train.

4. What is the best book you have read this year?
Julie & Julia by Julie Powell.

5. What is the best movie you have seen this year?
No truly amazing movies are springing to mind at the moment, although The Green Hornet was really funny.
I'll probably be reminded of so many movies later today, ha!

6. Do you tend to crave sweet or salty foods?
Sweet foods, all the time.

7. Do you eat breakfast every day? If so, what do you have?
I certainly don't eat breakfast every day. When I do, it's usually just cereal if I'm making it for myself. If someone else is making it for me, it's like eggs, bacon and pancakes.

8. If you celebrate Easter, what Easter treat/candy are you most looking forward to?
Mini eggs. Those things are addictive!

9. How late is “sleeping in” to you?
Sleeping until around 10am-11am.

10. Where are you going on your next vacation?
We're trying to plan a trip to Victoria and Seattle this summer. I'm also going to try and convince my family to go camping in Montana.

The Books On My Nightstand

I've been to the library quite a few times recently (yesterday, in fact) and then to the thrift store twice. I love going to the thrift store to pick up new books because they're cheap! All of the books that I've found there have been in nearly brand new condition. Which is good, because I'm kind of picky about the condition that my books are in.Side note: Can you believe that my books are still in boxes, and we've lived in this house for over 4 months? I need a new bookshelf, but since we also need a lot of other things, it's just been sitting on the list.

Here's a sampling of the books piling up on my nightstand:

Julie & Julia, and Cleaving by Julie Powell. Ever since I saw the movie, I've been interested in reading the books. I just finished Julie & Julia, and I'm about halfway through Cleaving. I find that Julie is portrayed quite differently in the movie compared to the book. Cleaving is about her affair, so it's quite the departure from the first book. Still really good. Both library books as well, which is disappointing because I'd love to own them.

Roasting in Hell's Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay. I originally picked this up for Stephen at the library, but when he told me that he really enjoyed it, I decided to renew it so I could read it as well. I've always loved Chef Ramsay

Goodnight Nobody and Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. I need some good chick lit every once in a while.

Alligator by Lisa Moore. I have to admit that I originally grabbed this only because I recognized the cover. It sounds like an interesting read!

drink, play, f@#k by Andrew Gottlieb. I read Eat, Pray, Love, and now I want to read the man's version of the story. Sounds like it should be a good read!

Have you read any of these books? What books do you have on your nightstand?

7 Quick Takes (Vol 33)

1. I decided not to do link love today because I've been bad about saving links this week. Oops!

2. I've been having laptop troubles all week. A few months ago, my laptop stopped charging. I assumed it was the cord, but didn't replace it. I just switched to using my backup laptop. It wasn't in very good condition, but it worked. Until Tuesday, that is. It too decided to stop charging! Tuesday evening, I decided on a whim to try something out on the good laptop that I had read about online. It worked! I woke up yesterday morning though to discover that it once again stopped charging. Now, I have zero laptops that work. What the heck am I doing wrong? I guess I'll be bugging Stephen to let me blog on his desktop.

3. I've caught some sort of cold. Maybe it has to do with the weather: one day it's warm, the next it's below zero again and snowing.

4. Stephen and I watched an entire season of House in one week. We had a deadline because it was borrowed from the library, but even still, I'm amazed that we watched so many episodes.

5. I've been to the library so many times in the past two weeks that it's a little bit ridiculous. At one point, I had 14 books checked out. I couldn't help it, I just suddenly found all of the books I've been wanting to take out! A couple were cookbooks, and two were for Stephen.

6. My boss sent me home with some sliced up turkey and a loaf of focaccia bread yesterday. Stephen and I turned it into the best sandwiches I've had in a while.

7. I've got the day off today, so I intend on resting quite a bit so that I'm not sick all weekend.
What are your weekend plans?

S’mores Brownies

Back when my sister Jessica started dating her boyfriend, I invited them both over for dinner. I apparently made some sort of beer and cheddar soup thing (that no one liked) and some s’mores brownies for dessert. Those brownies seemed to have made an impression on Daniel, and he’s been asking me to make them for him ever since. Daniel helped Stephen and I move into our house in December, and as a way to say thank you, I was supposed to make him s’mores brownies. For some reason, I didn’t make them until this past weekend.

It seems like I didn’t save the recipe for these brownies. That’s strange, because I squirrel away recipes like nobodies business. I’ve got recipes shoved into every drawer in this house, and I’ve even got several tucked away in books. Jessica and Daniel were coming over for a games night and I knew that I wanted to bake these brownies. Luckily, there was a recipe posted on Recipe Girl the week of. Done deal! I may have over baked the brownies a little bit, but the entire batch still disappeared quite quickly. Hopefully Daniel enjoyed his brownies!

S’mores Brownies
From Recipe Girl

(Printable Recipe)

Crust:

7 tbsp melted butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tbsp sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line and grease an 8x8” pan.
2. Mix together graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Press into pan, and bake for 15 minutes.

Brownie Layer:

1/2 cup butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup flour

1. In a heat proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water on the stove, melt the chocolate and butter. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar, sugar, vanilla and salt.
2. Add eggs and beat well. Fold in flour.
3. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Topping:

1 cup chocolate chips
3 cups mini marshmallows
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

1. Turn the oven to broil.
2. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of brownies. Top with mini marshmallows and then graham cracker crumbs.
3. Put the pan back in the oven, and toast the marshmallows until golden brown. Keep a close eye on the marshmallows, because they can burn quickly.

Enjoy!

Guinea Pig Update

I’m not sure if you guys remember, but I’ve got two guinea pigs. Oreo and Piglet are my gals. We got Oreo back around the end of August, when she was about 4 weeks old. She’s now about 8 months old, and holy heck is she ever big! I think she may even be bigger than Piglet (who is around 2 years old). The guinea pigs are doing well and are spoiled rotten. I’m helpless when it comes to those little squeaks of theirs!

{Piglet}

{Oreo}

We had them in a large cage that I bought off of Kijiji, but I knew that the cage just wasn’t big enough. Guinea pigs need the space to run around. The size of our last apartment really affected the size of our cage though, so we just had to make sure that Piglet and Oreo got lots of time outside of their cage. Now that we’ve got lots of room in this place, the time was right for us to make a bigger cage. I had been doing some research about cages and found a lot of positive feedback about C&C cages (cubes and coroplast). I knew that this was our best option, so I managed to talk Stephen into making the cage for me. All it took was an afternoon trip to Rona and some time spent cutting and assembling. It really didn’t seem that hard, and the guinea pigs seem to love all of the extra space.

While we were at it, I decided to switch out their bedding option as well. I was using the stuff you can buy at pet stores. I’m not entirely sure what it’s called, wood shavings? I’ve always just called it bedding. Anyway, that stuff was smelly and got everywhere. There was always bedding all over the floor around their cage. I read a lot about using fleece as bedding, and figured it was worth a shot. The basic idea is that you line the cage with some towels and then put fleece over top. Because fleece is absorbent, it will soak everything up and it’ll all go through the towels. It’s not nearly as messy, and it’s so much more comfortable! We’ve has it for about a week and a half now, and I’ve already noticed a huge difference. We have a little hand vacuum, so I vacuum the cage once a day, then wash the bedding once a week. Even after a week, it’s not as smelly as you would expect. Oreo and Piglet also seem to enjoy it because it’s so soft! I always find Piglet laying around outside of her house.

{Bottom layer of old towels}

{Top layer of fleece}

I have plans to fill the cage up with some extra things like tunnels for the guinea pigs to run through now that they have the extra space. It’s a big cage; I’d say that Stephen and I can both sit inside of it with room to spare.
I realize that this probably makes me a crazy pet lady now, but I’m just a sucker for cute little animals.
Do you have any pets? What are some crazy things you’d do for your pets?

Ten on Tuesday

#74 @ Roots and Rings

1. What is your idea best date?
I’m going to go ahead and assume this is supposed to read as what is your idea of the best date. In that case, it’s any date that is geared towards the things I love. If the person has really taken the time to get to know me and find out my interests, and then planned a date around that, then I’m happy! Laughter is also important. We need to be having a good time.

2. How long does it take you to get ready to go on a date?
Not very long, because I’m not much of a girly girl. I also don’t get ready all at once. I’ll shower a couple of hours before, wait for my hair to dry, then start getting ready.

3. What would you wear on the date?
Depends on what we’re doing. I’m a very casual person, so it would be nice to be in comfortable clothing on the date. Clearly, if we’re going somewhere nice, I’d dress up accordingly.

4. If you are married, how often do you go on dates? If you are single, when was your last date?
I’m not married, but my last date with Stephen was on our anniversary. He took me out to dinner and then surprised me with tickets to the ballet.

5. What was your worst date?
I was supposed to meet a guy for coffee, but when I showed up, he decided that we should go for dinner instead. The meal was ok, but at the end when the waitress brought our bill, he asked her to split it in two. I figure if you change our plans last minute, then you should pay for the meal. He then wanted to watch the hockey game, even though I told him I’m not into watching hockey on TV. It was so unbelievably boring that I had him take me home. No joke. Clearly, we never went out on another date.

6. Do you/Did you kiss on your first date?
On my first date with Stephen, he tried to get me to kiss him, but I wouldn’t give him anything more than a peck. Obviously he didn’t mind because we’re still together!

7. If married, how long before you knew he/she was the one? If single, how long before you know if the person is marriage material?
I feel like I knew pretty early on that I wanted to marry Stephen. I can’t really explain why, but I just knew.

8. Do you prefer day dates or night dates?
I don’t really have much of a preference, but my favorite dates with Stephen are ones that last all day/night.

9. How old were you when you first were allowed to date?
My parents never set an age for me to start dating, but I was Mormon as a teenager, and the rule for Mormons is no dating until you’re 16.

10. What is the most embarrassing moment you have had on a date?
I honestly wasn’t much of a dater, so I didn’t really have any embarrassing moments that I can recall. I guess I’m lucky that way!

Spring Break

Last week was spring break for the boys that I nanny. I normally only get the older brother before and after school, so I don’t get to spend a lot of time with him. I also get their cousin after school, but he went away for spring break. Because of my limited time with K, I don’t normally get to take him places, so we were pretty excited to finally be able to go and do something together (along with his younger brother). We all decided that a zoo adventure would be the perfect way to pass the day.

We left early in the morning in an attempt to beat the spring break crowds. I have to admit, I had so much fun with these boys. They were so much better behaved than other kids that I have brought to the zoo, which made my day so much easier. We saw all the animals that we wanted, but the boys were focused on something else; The Bow. It’s a building that’s currently being built downtown, and it’s already the largest building. These boys were obsessed with it! Not even the sights of these animals could compete with the Bow…

How could they resist two hippos lazing about, or a baby giraffe? A baby giraffe for crying out loud! All they cared about was seeing the Bow, and every time they did, they insisted we take a picture of it. After hearing about it for the thousandth time, I knew what had to be done. We needed to switch trains downtown not too far from where the Bow is, so we made a little side trip. K was so excited!

We acted just like tourists; standing on the corner across the street taking a ton of pictures. Him and his brother posed in front of the Bow so that I could get pictures to show his class. I even handed my camera over to K so that he could grab a few pictures as well.

T didn’t want to be left out, he had to have a picture of his favorite building as well; the Calgary Tower!

After we got home, I asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was. It was seeing the Bow of course. Next time we go out, they want to take a trip to Suncor plaza. Silly boys.